Finmere
| Finmere | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 St Michael and All Angels, Finmere | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP633329 |
| Location: | 51°59’29"N, 1°4’43"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 466 (2011) |
| Post town: | Buckingham |
| Postcode: | MK18 |
| Dialling code: | 01280 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cherwell |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Banbury |
| Website: | finmerepc.org |
Finmere is a village in Oxfordshire, south of the River Great Ouse, leaning up against the county's boundary with Buckinghamshire, formed by a lane cutting across the edge of the village. Finmere is almost four miles west of Buckingham and just over four miles east of Brackley in Northamptonshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 466.
The name 'Finmere' is derived from the Old English for "pool frequented by woodpeckers".[1] The village includes the hamlet of Little Tingewick.
Archaeology
In 2000 archaeologists found evidence of Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman activity in Finmere Quarry about three-quarters of a mile west of the village.[2] Five early Bronze Age cremation pits were excavated, and from one pit two collared urns were recovered.[3] The cremations were dated to about 2040 to 1880 BC.[4]
The site of a late Iron Age settlement was found west of the cremation pits and just east of the trackbed of the former Great Central Main Line railway.[5] The settlement consisted originally of a number of roundhouses packed close together in a straight line, and then developed in phases with later structures overlapping the sites of some of the earlier ones.[6] Enclosures, presumably to contain livestock, were created at different times and in different shapes, with the outlines of some enclosures from different periods overlapping the sites of the roundhouses and each other.[6] Iron Age pottery recovered from the site suggests that the settlement was occupied in phases from the 4th to the 1st century BC.[4]
A pair of ditches were found running parallel across the site about 15 feet apart[7] and roughly east–west.[5] The ditches were identified as flanking a track, and fragments of wheel-thrown pottery found on part of the site led to the track being dated to the period of Roman occupation of Britain.[7] The site is about a mile from the course of the Roman road that linked Alchester near Bicester with Lactodurum (now Towcester), which runs through the eastern side of Finmere village.
History
Manor
Before the Norman Conquest, Wulfward the White, a thegn of King Edward the Confessor's Queen Edith, owned the Manor of Finmere. However, by 1086 William of Normandy had granted the manor to Geoffrey de Montbray, who was Bishop of Coutances but also one of William's senior military commanders. Subsequently, the manor passed to the Earls of Gloucester, in whose family it stayed until the 4th Earl of Gloucester died without a successor in 1314. In 1347 the manor passed to the Ralph Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, in whose family it then remained.[1]
Social history
The Domesday Book records that by 1086 the village had a watermill. The village continued to have a mill on the Great Ouse until early in the 19th century, when Richard Temple-Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos had it demolished.[1]
In 1645 during the Civil War, a Parliamentarian force from Newport Pagnell surprised a platoon of eighteen Royalists stationed in Finmere. The Parliamentarians drove the Royalists out of the village, which thereafter remained under Parliamentarian control.
An open field system of farming predominated in the parish until 1667, when the common fields were enclosed.
At an unrecorded date prior to the Inclosure Act, a field of approx. 12 acres had been set aside for the use of the Poor of the village. It is known as the Poor's Plot and, as of 2023, still exists and income from the plot partly funds the village allotments.
In 1824 the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos built a National School for the village. In 1926 it was reorganised as a junior school, with senior pupils thereafter going to the school in Fringford. The first Finmere school was closed in 1948. A new school was built and opened in 1959.[1]
Parish church
Finmere had a parish church by 1189, when its advowson was granted to the Augustinian Friary in Bristol. The only surviving remnant from the parish church of that period seems to be the 12th century font.
The earliest surviving parts of the present Church of England parish church of St Michael and All Angels are the tower, the north wall of the chancel and the Decorated Gothic windows in the chancel and the south wall of the nave. The Perpendicular Gothic clerestory was added later. The church underwent major repairs at various times in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. A west gallery was added, probably in the 1760s. In 1856–58 the Gothic Revival architect George Edmund Street removed the west gallery, restored the church, widened the chancel arch and added the north aisle. A vestry was added in 1868 and a porch in 1876.[1] The architectural historians Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Jennifer Sherwood criticised Street's alterations for being "too aggressive" and dominating the rest of the building.[8]
The tower has also an historic turret clock that was installed in 1697.[1][9] 22 donors between them raised the £8 10s 0d cost.[9] The clock was altered with a new escapement and other alterations in 1858 and reinstalled in 1859.[1][10] Dr James Clarke of Finmere House designed the escapement and paid the £10 cost of reinstallation, which was done by William Bayliss,[10] the village carpenter.[11]
Historic houses
Finmere rectory has had a chequered history. In 1634 it was a relatively small house of only four bays. Thereafter it was enlarged to ten bays, but in 1662 a violent storm blew it down. The Rector had it rebuilt as a house of only five bays, but that burnt down in 1668. By 1685 the rectory consisted of only three bays, but by 1738 it had been enlarged to six. Also in the 18th century "Capability" Brown designed its gardens.[1] No trace of Brown's work survives, and in 1867 the house was demolished and replaced with a new rectory. This is now a private house, Finmere Place.[12]
Other historic houses in Finmere include Finmere House (built in 1600 and re-fronted in 1739)[1][12] and Lepper's House (built in 1638 and rebuilt in 1879).[1]
RAF Finmere
The War Department built a military airfield south of Finmere and Tingewick in 1941–42, which was commissioned in July 1942 as RAF Finmere.[13] It served as a Bomber Command operational training unit, flying Bristol Blenheim medium bombers which by then were obsolete for combat operations and used only for training. They were eventually withdrawn from this role as well and from January 1944 the training unit at RAF Finmere flew de Havilland Mosquitoes.
After the Second World War RAF Finmere served as a Transport Command storage depot until the 1950s, when it was decommissioned and closed as an RAF base. Part of one runway remains in use as a private airfield.
Since 1973 a Sunday market has been held on the area where the three concrete runways converge.
About the village
The parish has a thatched 17th- or 18th-century public house, the Red Lion at Little Tingewick.[14]
There is a village hall and playing fields at the north end of Finmere village.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Finmere) |
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Lobel 1959, pp. 116–125.
- ↑ Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, pp. 97.
- ↑ Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, pp. 105–106.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, p. 106.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, p. 99.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, pp. 106–117.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hart, Kenyon & Mudd 2010, p. 118.
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 604.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Beeson 1989, p. 37.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Beeson 1989, p. 38.
- ↑ Beeson 1989, p. 92.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 605.
- ↑ "RAF-Finmere, Buckinghamshire". Dereliction in the Shires. http://sites.google.com/site/derelictionintheshires/military-sites/raf-finmere.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1212308: The Red Lion (Grade II listing)
- Beeson, CFC (1989). Simcock, AV. ed. Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (3rd ed.). Oxford: Museum of the History of Science. pp. 37–38. ISBN 0-903364-06-9.
- Blomfield, James Charles (1998). History of Finmere. Finmere: Finmere and Little Tingewick Historical Society.
- Hart, Jonathan; Kenyon, David; Mudd, Andrew (2010). "Excavation of Early Bronze Age Cremations and a Later Iron Age Settlement at Finmere Quarry, North-East Oxfordshire". Oxoniensia (Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society) LXXV: 97–132. SSN 0308-5562.
- A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 6 pp 116-125: Parishes: Finmere (Victoria County History)
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2